Amaya opens kid friendly restaurant in Toronto

Seen here, the ceiling of the restaurant that has multicoloured panels depicting instructional dance steps

Says Hemant Bhagwani, better known as the man behind the Amaya Indian restaurants and fast food outlets, “There’s the feeling that you don’t make as much money when you’re focusing on kids even though you’re putting as much work into a dish, but I’m loving it right now.” It’s been a week since the opening of his latest venture, Bazaar Global Food Bar (692 Mount Pleasant Road at Soudan St.), Bhagwani’s 200-seat family restaurant with a menu that mixes and matches international cuisines.

In four months, Bhagwani transformed what was previously the high-end dim sum restaurant Lai Toh Heen into a space that matches the eclectic menu. It looks similar to a children’s wing of a science museum or Uncle Moe’s Family Feedbag. On the ceiling are multicoloured panels depicting instructional dance steps; food-related quotes painted on the wood paneling in the rear dining room; a neon psychic reader sign in one corner reserved for a fortune teller that comes in on weekends; crafts and paintings available for purchase. Upstairs there’s a room in which the walls are chalkboards, which on that day were still covered in scribbles from a recent child’s birthday party. (Bhagwani says that about a third of the diners that come through the doors are kids).